When you encourage those around you, the people you’ve influenced, do you do it by reminding them of your righteousness? Or recall how holy and blameless your behavior has been? Probably not. The Apostle Paul, however, did. He wrote to believers in Thessalonica:
You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:10-12).
On first reading, this passage strikes me as more than a bit arrogant. Worse, it seems theologically suspect. How can anybody except Jesus truthfully claim to be “holy, righteous and blameless?” And yet, I know that Paul was writing by the Holy Spirit.
Looking at this passage from a different perspective, if I seriously claim that Christ is living in me, then how can I not be living a life that is “holy, righteous and blameless?” So the question is not, why is Paul making grandiose claims, but why aren’t I living in such a way that I can truthfully make the same claim?
But Paul goes further, reminding the Thessalonians that he and his companions taught them to live lives “worthy of God.” Are these just empty words, or did they actually expect young believers to really do that? To live lives worthy of God? And if they really did expect that of the Thessalonians, why aren’t we expecting the same thing of ourselves? For far too long, I think, we have accepted a distorted idea that only an elite few “saints” can live holy lives. But what if that’s just an excuse we give for not doing what we know we should?
We laugh and admit to each other that we’re no saints, and nobody calls us on it and asks, “well, why aren’t you?” But in this passage, Paul tells us that he and his companions did live as saints, specifically so that they could teach others to do the same, to “live lives worthy of God.”
Holiness is not an optional add-on for super Christians. We’re not just supposed to admire the apostles; we’re supposed to follow their example, just as they followed Jesus’ example (1 Corinthians 11:1). The children of God need to learn to behave like, well, children of God. Our lives, my life, is supposed to look like Jesus’ life. As the Scripture says:
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).
It is a process, as this verse indicates, not a one-time decision to be perfect. But what on earth makes me think that it’s any harder for me to cooperate with Christ in this process, to be holy, righteous and blameless in my conduct, than it was for Paul, Silas and Timothy? The same Christ who lived in them also lives in me. The same Holy Spirit who guided and taught and protected them also guides and teaches and protects me. The same Father who set them apart as representatives of his kingdom has also set me apart as a representative of his kingdom. Holiness and righteousness are not the marks of apostleship, as this passage clearly shows, but the calling of every believer, in that century and in this one.
I am a son of the living God (Romans 8:16-17), the infinitely holy and righteous Creator of heaven and earth. If you are a follower of Jesus, you also are a son or a daughter of God. So isn’t it about time we started acting like it?